I am a K-4 teacher with the Vancouver School District (formerly teaching in Surrey Schools). With 27+ years of experience and a bunch of improvements along the way, I still have so much more to learn. This blog is a way to help me process and share all that I'm discovering on my quest to be the best educator I can be.

Sunday, September 15, 2013

Providing My Students with Choice - The Why and How I Get Started

Providing our youngest students with choice is one of
the most powerful things we can do for them.It empowers, engages, and inspires them.It teaches them how to make decisions, be independent, and solve
problems.When we give them choice in
how to learn, show, and share their knowledge we are sending some very clear
messages.We are letting them know that
we care about them and that we value their decisions. What better way to help
build positive self esteem in our youngest learners?We are also creating a supportive classroom
environment where risk taking is encouraged and celebrated, and mistakes are
not frowned upon but a reason to keep trying.Choice helps develop life long learners.Students are a lot more curious when they are in control of what or how
they learn.Choice puts the student at
the centre of their learning.

When I started to provide more choice for my students
there were several changes I noticed with my young learners. These include increased engagement,
problem solving, ownership of learning, authenticity of learning, collaboration, cooperation, peer assessment,
and pride with accomplishments.
These are all good reasons to give your students more choice.

Traditionally
being in control is most natural for teachers.
It is very easy to see why teachers struggle or are fearful with
offering their students choice. As an
educator myself, I totally understand that.
For many, letting go of classroom control is a very scary and
unimaginable task. It’s filled with a
lot of “but what if...” . Although I’ve given up a ton of control in my
classroom, I’d be lying if I said the “yah but...” thought hasn’t crossed my
mind a few times over the years.

Some also fear the chaos that may follows when children are given choice. It can be louder and messier than we are comfortable with. If a teacher is able to look past the noise and
the messiness and really look and listen to their students, they’ll see the
incredible learning that they are doing - not because they have to but because
they want to.

I’d be lying if I said that on the very first day of
school my students have complete choice in everything that they do. That’s
nuts, and the reality is, it would probably lead to complete chaos.On the first day of school I let my students
hang their coats on the hook of their choosing and let them choose where to
sit.Those are choices that I can live
with on the first day.That’s key. When
you are providing choice at any time during the year figure out what you can
live with.

I start really slow with the choices I offer my young
learners and model making decisions about each choice I give them. We talk
about the options available to them and the pros and cons of each. For example I may offer them the choice of
working on their own or working with a friend (or two). We talk about the
benefits of being on your own (quiet, no one to distract you etc...) and the
cons (lonely, no one to help you etc...)
vs working with a friend. I try really
hard to let them see the difference in the options and how those differences
may work better for one person but not another.
We look at the pros and cons each time I provide my students with a new
option and my students get better at making decisions for themselves. When I see a student having trouble making a
choice (and in the beginning this is very likely), I am there to help them with
their choices. Eventually they too can make their own choices.

I do have expectations for appropriate behaviour in my
classroom as well. We talk about work conditions and how one person works can
affect another person. My students are
made clear that if their method of work is interfering with another child’s
ability to work they either need to find a better location to do what they are
doing, or choose a different option.
Sometimes it boils down to a discussion between the students to figure
that out. Sometimes they both change, other times they both find ways to accept
the way their classmate is working. In
any case respectful problem solving skills are taught in advance, and then
modeled over and over again as necessary.

Slowly, over time, I provide my students with many
different areas of choice. Sometimes
the choice has to do with the tool that they use. For example, in writing, I
might let them choose to write with a
pencil, felt pen, crayon, iPad etc... Or
I might let them choose where they are going to do their writing such as on a
whiteboard, chalk board, notebook, poster paper, their blog etc. Or even still I may let them choose which tools they want to use to demonstrate their learning. The key is that my students know what the
learning objective is and they are encourage to make the best choice for them
to meet that objective.

At the beginning of the year, as I’m training my
students to handle choice, I control most variables. Sometimes the choice has to do with where
they work such as at a table, at a desk,
on the floor, in the hallway, or outside the classroom window. Sometimes I teach them different options to
practice a specific skill, but then I tell them which option to do so there are
different groups doing different things at the same time. This method helps my students understand that
there will be times when everyone is doing something different at the same time
working on the same skill. This
controlled choice is key to help my students become more independent. It also
helps me teach them a variety of options so that when I let them have full
choice, they are aware of the many different options they have available to
them.

When it comes to providing choice for my students iPads
have revolutionized my ability to do this.
An iPad meets my students exactly where they are and provides them with
tools necessary to take them forward with their learning. Here are a
couple of examples. My extremely shy student, whose voice was barely
heard in class, was able to record her thinking on the iPad, and then share
that thinking with the world on her individual blog. This student, who barely
spoke at school, was able to share with the world because of the ease of
comfort of an iPad. Another student, with a severe learning disability,
was able to use the speech to text feature of the iPad to have his spoken
word turned into text in a matter of seconds. This was huge for a student
who battled constantly to get his thoughts into written word.
While these are only two examples, there are many others.

When I introduce a new app I will show my students some of the things
that are possible and how they might use it with their learning. I might assign a task that everyone has to do
so that they can learn how the app functions.
I will also make sure that they have time to explore the app. Free exploration is important.

Sometimes I will also introduce an app using our big
buddies to help. This gives each child a
“big kid” to help them learn. One on one
attention makes everyone happy.
Together, after a little guidance from me, they learn the app as a
team. Playing with apps is vital in my
classroom. I want my students to explore apps so that when they are looking for
an app to demonstrate a specific type of learning, they have a large repertoire
to choose from.

I strategically introduce apps to my students as I think
they will benefit the required learning outcome but my students also have other
times during the day to explore apps on their own. Once an app is explicitly taught it becomes a
tool. Like all the other tools in our
class, my students can draw on these tools to practice and demonstrate their learning. In addition if their iPad has an app that
hasn’t been explicitly taught but they think it can help them demonstrate their
learning they are free to use it too. I’m always open for new ways of sharing
demonstrating learning and nothing makes me happier than when a student can
come up with one on their own.

These various ways of teaching my students how to make
choices for themselves are key in helping get my students ready to make their
own choices. Slowly over time, I start
to give my students more and more choices with their learning to the point
where they have almost complete control of their learning. In my class my
students end up picking what to read, what to write, and how to demonstrate
their math concepts. While I provide
them with options of ways they could show a math concept, I don’t expect them
to show me in one specific way. My
students are taught what the required learning out come is. They are given
samples of what not meeting, minimally meeting, fully meeting, and exceeding
expectations looks like. They CHOOSE
how to demonstrate their learning. They
continue to amaze me with what they know when they are given the chance to show
me in the ways that work best for them.

8 comments:

I loved reading the "how this happens" aspect that you shared in this post. Also love the images :-) I was fortunate to spend a day in your room at the end of a school year and so saw the results of what is possible when you set up your year in this way and support your students as they make choices throughout each and every day. What I saw that I loved: student confidence, the ability your children had to articulate what they were doing and why they were doing it, how comfortable the children were making decisions, how supportive students were of each other, amazing little conversations between students as they made decisions together. You have so much to share Karen. We are all so fortunate that you take time so regularly to do so in these reflective and informative blog posts. Thank you.

Carrie, thank you! This comment touched me more than you'll ever know. I work very hard to provide a classroom where choice thrives for some of the exact reasons that you mention in your comment. It validated so much of what I work hard to accomplish with my students. So thank you Carrie for not only visiting my classroom in action, but for sharing what you saw. Karen

Karen,Thank you for this post. It has come just in time as I struggle to offer choice to my grade ones. It is scared, but they love it, and even in choosing their own coat hooks, mostly make good choices. I know in my heart that this is the way to go as I move forward.

Love the article. As you've so eloquently pointed out, providing kids with choice must come gradually, and when it is done with their learning styles and needs and interests at heart, completely enriches their learning experiences. What you speak of is at the heart of personalized learning, something the BC Education Plan is committed to helping teachers and students achieve.

This is great article and I also think tutoring is very helpful for students that are struggling. I am glad I came across this because summer tutoring is a great way to help kids catch up for the new year ahead. It can also help them practice different areas that they struggled with in the year before. For my son, tutoring in Chicago is a great option because they have very experienced tutors from great colleges. He really enjoyed the home-visits because he was a lot more comfortable and they used a fun and unique method to help him learn. Great article though, and I am glad people are still using tutoring services!